The invention relates to apparatus for providing timing signals spaced in time by a varying amount, and in particular to apparatus for providing timing signals to a stepping motor.
A stepper motor rotates a given angle in response to each digital step signal that it receives, and in many applications it is desirable to accelerate a stepper motor at a fixed maximum rate. To cause acceleration of the stepper motor, it is necessary to successively decrease the time periods between the step signals; specifically, the time period between timing signals should be proportional to the reciprocal square root of the number of steps that have been taken.